#7 - Religion, Morality and Understanding Reality

Welcome to the religion episode! It was inevitable, in hindsight. Geoff Allen starts by laying out his personal history of religious un-conversions and re-conversions (from the ages of 12 to 25).

**This episode features some brand new music: an uplifting track to match an uplifting message. This track, ’Optimism/Choate’, and the full album, ‘Extrapolator (Original Podcast Soundtrack)’, are available on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and all major platforms.**

What is the ontological status of a religious belief? Where does it reside, or in what way does it exist? Well, religions are human ‘narratives’, just like currencies, economies and countries. This is revealed when we step back and characterise religious beliefs from an evolutionary perspective.

Religious beliefs have no truth or meaning in reality outside of human minds. We have believed in various gods because it was useful, not because it was true.

When it comes to morality, religious stories can be confusing and misleading. Religious rights sometimes appear to clash with other human rights. Is it hypocritical to restrict the rights of religious people, while they try to restrict the rights of women (and other groups)? How far do religious rights go?

As always, to answer these questions, we must drill down to our fundamental assumptions about reality.

A bibliography for each episode is available here: https://geoffallenwriting.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/extrapolator-bibliography/

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